Wake up to Sunrise, a superb new calendar app for Android

Truly gorgeous Android apps used to be few and far between, but in recent years, Google Play has seen more and more of them. The latest is Sunrise, a wonderful calendar app that has already made a name for itself on iOS thanks to its innovative design and impressive feature set.

Since making the switch to Android, I’ve been missing a small bunch of apps that are exclusive to iOS. Android certainly has its alternatives, and sometimes they’re just as good — but sometimes they’re not. Sunrise was one of those apps, and it’s a perfect example of this problem.

Search “calendar” in Google Play and you’ll find hundreds of apps that will help you manage your schedule. Some of them are pretty good — I’m actually a big fan of Cal and Today Calendar — but not even those are quite as excellent as Sunrise.

That’s because Sunrise isn’t just a plain old calendar app. Not only does it support your Google and iCloud calendars, but it also connects to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and more to pull events from there, too. It also has a unique interface that makes planning your day quick and easy.

Rather than a traditional calendar UI — a screen full of lines and squares — Sunrise presents you with your calendar at a glance when you first open it up. You’ll see only the next two weeks in a traditional calendar view, and beneath that you’ll get a brief forecast of the day’s weather, as well as a list of the appointments (with fancy icons and avatars for attendees) and tasks ahead of you.

Sunrise for Android also comes with a widget for your home screen — a feature iOS users don’t have. It doesn’t yet support tablets, but both tablet compatibility and support for Exchange calendars is coming soon.

Sunrise is free and it’s available to download from Google Play now. I’m sure you’ve already picked up your phone to grab it (you should have!), but if not, you can follow the link below. Be sure to check out the new web-based Sunrise app, too.